The concept of setting goals is certainly not new, all successful people in every walk of life constantly promote the idea, but if you are like me the whole idea seemed very boring; after all I was far too busy getting things done to be bothered with setting goals!
Does this sound familiar? The idea of being busy… busy at what? If you are not careful you will end up like I was “being busy at being busy!”
Life is a great teacher you pay the price first and then you get the lesson, in my case I was busy going around in circles for years and achieving very little (in all areas of my life), then in desperation I thought I might give the concept of setting goals a try, after all I had nothing to lose everything else had failed to produce results.
It took a while for me to get my head around it but once you start seeing the results you will be amazed.
If you have tried everything else and are tired of banging your head (and/or guitar) up against a musical brick wall maybe it’s time to give goal setting a whirl.
Here’s what I do, it works for me and I know it will work for you!
Tip #1: Write your goals down
Take time out to think. Get away from your daily schedule, maybe go for a walk in nature, go to the beach or just sit under a tree but take a break your normal daily pattern and spend some quality time with yourself.
Take some paper and pencils and organize your thoughts.
Tip #2: Work backward from the end result you want to achieve.
“Begin with the end in mind” is an important concept that I first became aware of when I read Stephen Covey’s excellent book “The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People”.
The idea is to write down the end result you want to achieve and then work backwards in years, months, weeks and days until you have a blueprint of what you will need to do on a daily basis to achieve your goals.
Tip #3: Make your big goal exciting but achievable.
Tip #4: Be prepared to make adjustments to your daily, weekly and monthly goals as you move towards your BIG goal, your overall plan must be flexible.
Tip #5: Write your close range goal in big letters on a single piece of paper and stick it on the wall where you can see it everyday.
Remember everything in life has a price, let’s say you enjoy watching television and no matter how many times you have thought about working on your goal you find yourself hour after hour sitting in front of the TV.
In this instance if you wanted to break the TV watching cycle try sticking your goal over the television screen; be creative the idea is to confront yourself… do you really want to achieve your goals or are they just dreams.
At the end of the day to achieve your goals you need two things.
1. Clarity of intent
2. Force of will
If you are clear on your goals, that takes care of the clarity bit, the other part will depend on how determined you are, if you are prepared to overcome all the obstacles and challenges that life sends your way, you will achieve your goals.
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